Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Ly-\alpha\ forest of BOSS quasars

• Published in: arXiv.org 2013-02
• Main Authors: Busca, Nicolás G, Delubac, Timothée, Rich, James, Bailey, Stephen, Font-Ribera, Andreu, Kirkby, David, -M Le Goff, J, Pieri, Matthew M, Slosar, Anze, Aubourg, Éric, Bautista, Julian E, Bizyaev, Dmitry, Blomqvist, Michael, Bolton, Adam S, Bovy, Jo, Brewington, Howard, Borde, Arnaud, Brinkmann, J, Carithers, Bill, Croft, Rupert A C, Dawson, Kyle S, Garrett Ebelke, Eisenstein, Daniel J, Hamilton, Jean-Christophe, Ho, Shirley, Hogg, David W, Honscheid, Klaus, Khee-Gan, Lee, Lundgren, Britt, Malanushenko, Elena, Malanushenko, Viktor, Margala, Daniel, Maraston, Claudia, Mehta, Kushal, Miralda-Escudé, Jordi, Myers, Adam D, Nichol, Robert C, Pasquier Noterdaeme, Olmstead, Matthew D, Oravetz, Daniel, Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie, Pan, Kaike, Pâris, Isabelle, Percival, Will J, Petitjean, Patrick, Roe, N A, Rollinde, Emmanuel, Ross, Nicholas P, Rossi, Graziano, Schlegel, David J, Schneider, Donald P, Shelden, Alaina, Sheldon, Erin S, Simmons, Audrey, Snedden, Stephanie, Tinker, Jeremy L, Viel, Matteo, Weaver, Benjamin A, Weinberg, David H, White, Martin, Yèche, Christophe, York, Donald G
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceleration; Baryons; Big Bang theory; Cosmic microwave background; Cosmology; Dark energy; Deceleration; Forests; Quadrupoles; Quasars; Red shift; Sky surveys (astronomy); Universe
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1211.2616

We report a detection of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the three-dimensional correlation function of the transmitted flux fraction in the \Lya forest of high-redshift quasars. The study uses 48,640 quasars in the redshift range \(2.1\le z \le 3.5\) from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III). At a mean redshift \(z=2.3\), we measure the monopole and quadrupole components of the correlation function for separations in the range \(20\hMpc